In line with the U.S. administration’s commitment to human capacity development in Africa through entrepreneurship, the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. African Development Foundation will jointly sponsor the participation of entrepreneurs from President Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative in DEMO Africa 2014.
Launched in 2010, YALI is a key vehicle of the Obama administration to connect young African entrepreneurs to investors, advisors, and distribution networks, although some have condemned it as a U.S. attempt to brainwash young Africans. Close to 70 percent of Africa’s population is aged below 25, making it the youngest continent in the world. Young people currently make up about 60 percent of total unemployment in Africa, a statistic that often leads to conversations about the potential for civil unrest and gravitation to terrorist groups.
The annual DEMO Africa platform, scheduled this year for Sept. 25-26 in Lagos, Nigeria, allows innovative African startups to launch their products and services before a global audience of venture capitalists, investors, tech acquisition specialists, IT buyers and media. It was created in 2012 under the Liberalizing Innovation Opportunity Nations (LIONS@FRICA) Partnership involving the State Department, Microsoft Corp., DEMO (the brand of conferences produced by U.S.-based IDG Enterprise for emerging technology and product innovations), USAID, and Startup Weekend.
DEMO Africa focuses on innovation in agriculture, health, education, manufacturing, retail, media and entertainment, communication, transport and logistics, energy, finance and banking, water and sanitation, and waste management and recycling. AfricaStrictlyBusiness.com’s “FABA (For Africa By Africans)” column is dedicated to showcasing such innovations.
DEMO Africa alumni are said to have generated more than $8 million to date either in investment, business or partnerships.
In addition to participating in DEMO Africa this year, YALI Network members will have a chance to participate in the State Department’s 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Summit, which will be hosted in Morocco—its first time in sub-Saharan Africa.
YALI’s flagship program, the Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, brings hundreds of Africa’s most dynamic young leaders to the United States each year for six weeks of leadership training, networking, and mentoring at top U.S. universities. Training and mentorship are concentrated in business and entrepreneurship, civic engagement, and public administration.
Honoring the memory of South Africa’s first Black president, Nelson Mandela, President Obama on July 28 changed the Fellowship’s name to the Mandela Washington Fellowship during a YALI town hall meeting in Washington, D.C., one week before opening day of his unprecedented U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. The president also used the town hall meeting to announce the doubling of the number of annual Fellows to 1,000 by the summer of 2016.
The YALI gathering in the run-up to the Leaders Summit added emphasis to Leaders Summit theme of “Investing In The Next Generation.” U.S. officials say they will continue to provide young Africans access to resources they can use to put their skills to work in service of their communities. Measures include:
* Entrepreneurship grants. A partnership between the U.S. African Development Foundation and the State Department will provide $2.5 million in seed funding to members of the YALI Network over the next three years in the form of 250 small entrepreneurship grants. The grants will support start-ups and expansion of businesses and social ventures in 2015 in Ghana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and Rwanda.
* Mobile incubators. U.S. embassies in Africa will build entrepreneurial capacity beyond the capital cities by training and helping to incubate the businesses of at least 5,000 aspiring entrepreneurs from the YALI Network in provincial cities and rural areas during 2015. StartUp Weekend and other experts will accompany a mobile incubator, equipped with the tools and technology to get a business off the ground. Conducted in collaboration with local governments, institutions, and NGOs, the training workshops and equipment are designed to walk aspiring entrepreneurs through the basic precepts of starting a business, including writing a business plan, leveraging online resources, raising capital, and expanding market share.
